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Column: Price fixing means a payout for consumers

Are you going to redeem your $25 Loblaws Gift card?
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Serena Caner, registered dietician

Are you going to redeem your $25 Loblaws Gift card?

With all the gift cards flying around, it’s a good month to be out of money for food.

Grocery giant Loblaws, who run a number of grocery stores including No Frills and the Real Canadian Superstore, admitted to participating in a bread price-fixing arrangement from 2001 until 2015.

Essentially, some of the biggest companies that make or sell bread conspired together to increase prices.

Last week, registration opened for a free $25 gift card, but it requires consumers to waive their rights to the first $25 of any future financial settlement that may arise. While several class action lawsuits have started and the Competition Bureau investigation continues, we are left wondering what other retailers may have been involved or what other prices have been fixed.

The troubling reality of this event is that our food supply is being controlled by fewer and fewer sources.

The five largest food retailers in Canada — Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart and Costco —control about 80 per cent of the market.

This problem is being replicated on the shelves, where only 10 companies control almost every large food and beverage brand in the world: Nestle, Pepsi-Co, Coca-cola, Unilever, Danone, GeneralMills, Kelloggs, Mars, Associated British Foods, Mondelez. When so few companies have control over all the food, the potential for corruption and price control is huge.

One solution to reclaiming food sovereignty is to walk away from the industrial food system.

Whether we like it or not, grocery shopping has become a highly political act, and you need to put your money towards a food system that you trust. We hope to discover that price fixing is not common practice in our trusted food chains.

However, the best way to get your point across is not by accepting bribes, but by spending your food dollars elsewhere, such as local, independent grocery stores and farmer’s markets.

-Serena Caner is a registered dietitian who works at Shuswap Lake General Hospital.